PLUS:
Watch a video interview with David
AND: David Gives
Advice to Aspiring Writers
AND:
Listen to a Writer's Voice interview with David
The
Writerly Life
Read
Episode 1
| Read
Episode 2
Read
Episode 3
| Read
Episode 4 | Read
Episode 5 | Read
Espisode 6
| Read
Espisode 7
| Read
Espisode 8
Episode
9
I’ve
just finished the first third of The Devil’s Waters.
I like it.
Even
more exciting, I’ve spoken with my agent Luke Janklow and
he likes it. Trust me on this; you get nowhere without an agent’s
enthusiasm. But more on that another time.
How
do I know that I’m at the one third mark in the manuscript?
An
excellent question, for those of you who asked. You others, attend.
I
am of the belief, and I lecture on this point in my class at William
and Mary as well as at writers’ conferences, that one of
the most important skills any writer can possess is, like Atlas,
to have the ability to hold the entire world of the book across
your shoulders.
To
make this anecdotal, imagine you – like me – are at
page 70 in the writing of your book. Those first pages were dedicated
to expounding on character, place, time, backstory, the threats
and thwarts that await your hero’s quest, the strengths
and drives of your villain, the power of the gathering storm and
the resolve of the stalwarts to face it.
When
you hit the gateway to the middle third, you need to engage the
action, let the fur fly. No more explicating that the hero’s
wife passed away from a flea bite in Auckland during the big flea
epidemic of ’05. No need any longer to tell the reader that
Iris has features which easily flush when she is embarrassed,
ebony hair, alabaster skin, and an affinity for princes on horseback.
You are relieved of the duty to tell the reader that the Lizard
People live in fear of invasion, are terribly quick to anger,
and the missiles they fired were only warning shots, but beware
the second salvo.
You
get the point. You’ve done your bona fides as you enter
the second third of the book. Now it’s time to let the sheriff
decide to rid the town of the Beuregards but he needs to recruit
allies from the cattlemen on the edge of town. The commander has
decided to return to sea, breaking Juanita’s heart. Vampire
king Elder Paulino has captured his love, and now must defend
his choice against her zombie clan.
You
get the point. Action time. Storm cloud time. Heartbreak complication
cliff looming you’re-fired! barrage lottery pick oh no!
time. The middle third is the battlefield of the book. The cruising
altitude. Wheels up.
But
you must know you’ve entered the middle third to understand
what time it is in the world of the book.
How
do you do this? How can you hold the entire story in your hands
like a globe, spin it to see all the lands and oceans at once,
yet maintain the story’s ability to surprise you?
Some
writers create outlines. I am not a fan of desiccating the story
down to dusty revelations from months ago. I like surprise from
my characters. But – and heed this – I do not like
surprises from my plot.
Herein
lies the secret, I believe, to knowing all your tale and being
able to recognize where you are in it. To never be lost and always
know two things: where you are and where you are going. To never
know one thing: how you will get there.
This
is how I figure it. The writer is in charge of creating the story,
the characters are given the responsibility to live it. This breaks
down into separate duties. The writer builds the world out of
immovable objects: checkpoints, pivots, straight lines and curves,
banks, bridges, chasms, mounts and vales. The character climbs
and dives and speeds and crashes through this world with a mobile,
unpredictable and human compass.
So
what does the writer hold when he holds the world of the book?
Only the points, like connect the dots. The space between the
dots belongs to the characters and the weather and the mutable
aspects of the book. Imagine a computer which compresses a photo
before sending it in email. This is what the writer does; compacts
the story into its structure. Then, when he sits to write and
expand the story to its true size – think connect the dots
– he should allow as much freedom of expression and movement
to his characters, so long as they move to the next dot.
This,
then, is how I know I have passed the one third border in The
Devil’s Waters. My characters have grown and dodged
and amazed me at every turn. But they have followed my turns.
Never have they dictated the direction, only the method. Think
NASCAR. Every driver does attacks that track differently, but
they all go the same direction, without exception.
Now,
in my book, I am finished with describing what LB or Wally looks
like. How bad-ass Yusuf is. How weird a thing Moro is. How dangerous
a world they live in, how Yusuf’s mother was an oral storyteller
and he inherited this trait. And so on. Now, they are collide
about to that fated ship in the middle of the Gulf of Aden, the
devils’ waters. The middle third is when the gate closes
and the carnie pushes the lever, and away the ride goes.
I’ll
discuss the third third in a few months. Stay tuned. And maybe
more on agents.
For
now, all is well, so far as I know. The Podium Foundation (please
check out our website) continues to serve the high school
kids of Richmond Public Schools. We do good work, and accept donations
of any size. I ask this in an unabashed fashion because our mission
is good, our vision is clear and the need is great in these schools.
My
sailing time on the Chesapeake Bay remains at a premium. I get
down to visit Jeanette every chance I get, which is never enough.
Summer
in Richmond is a skillet. If you live in the mid-Atlantic states,
you feel me on this.
All
in all, I’m going strong on the book. Health is solid, though
I ain’t the boy I was. My dear friend Tom Robbins has awarded
me high praise for his reading of my last book, Broken Jewel.
I say this with pride, since Tom is in many estimations one of
the top 50 writers in the English language in the last 50 years.
I’ll
wrap up for now. Please contact me if you like. I answer all my
emails personally, and am flattered, honored, to do so.
In
your own community, find a way to serve this summer. The need
for volunteers, a non-profit buck, a kind and freely given act,
has never been greater in America. Leave your politics at the
door and find someone needier than you. We only keep what we give.
All
best wishes. I remain your hardworking storyteller,
David
L. Robbins
Richmond, VA
—Posted
7.12.10
|
